The Parents Television Council has now accused the NFL and Super Bowl broadcaster NBC of "enabling" MIA to make the obscene gesture and insisted that it was a mistake to book "performers who have based their careers on shock profanity and titillation" for the Super Bowl.

"It is unfortunate that a spectacular sporting event was overshadowed once again by broadcasting the selfish acts of a desperate performer," the PTC said in a statement.

The group's statement continued: "Either the NFL and NBC will take immediate steps to hold those accountable for this offensive material in front of a hundred million Americans, or they will feebly sit back and do nothing."

The PTC added that it is looking for NBC and the NFL to take more substantial action than say sorry, because an apology would appear "hollow after yet another slap in the face to families".

NBC has issued a public response to the incident, where it claimed that it did not blur MIA's obscene gesture because it occurred too quickly for its technical system to catch.

The NFL also offered regrets over the matter, saying: "The obscene gesture in the performance was completely inappropriate, very disappointing, and we apologize to our fans."

Sunday's Super Bowl broke worldwide Twitter records with more than 10,000 messages per second being posted during the final minutes of the New York Giants victory over the New England Patriots.

Madonna's half-time medley has drawn mixed reviews from viewers and critics. San Francisco firm Kanjoya has released its analysis of the performance, which found that the words "amazing", "great", "good", "best", "bad" and "hating" were among the most commonly-posted on social media websites.